Back to School

Back to School

I was in a crowd of adults, packed close enough that I was physically touching multiple people. Every once and awhile there would be a push at my waist as a child tried to force their way through the adults to the gathered children in the middle of the crowd.

Depending on your opinion, we either came at just the right time this year or we were late. It was the “Re-entry” Day (at least that is the French  word they use, we’d probably say “Back to School” Day). Normal school days start at 7am and so many families were there since that time, but we came a little past 8:30. So instead of milling around for over an hour, when we arrived the crowds had already gathered around the stairs from where the directrice would address the assembled parents and children. The children are supposed to be in neat lines based upon their grade in front of the stairs with the parents calmly observing from the outskirts. In reality, the space isn’t big enough for both the children and parents to fit neatly, so the kids’ lines get muddled and buckled up as the mass of parents clamber around, corralling the kids until their lines turn into a messy jumble in the middle.

The "Rentry" crowd

When we arrived, the directrice was just making her way to the stairs. We got to the outer edge of parents and then I pushed my kids forward and adults let them through. I couldn’t follow them, but I told them to find their classmates and say “Present” when their name was called. I worked my way along the outside of the adults until I could actually see the directrice, knowing I’d understand her better if I could see her face (the island language is not my first language after all). Not that anyone could hear her clearly. Too many people, too much background noise and muttering. “She should have a megaphone,” multiple parents grumbled. I caught enough to know that it was basically the same “Back to School” spiel as previous years— “Don’t be late, don’t give your kids sugary snacks, don’t do your kids’ homework for them…”

Several minutes in, I got tapped and looked down to see our youngest son in tears pushing his way toward me. He was wiping at his eyes and taking deep breaths, trying to calm himself but he was obviously overwhelmed. Our kids are the only foreign kids in the school. This was our youngest son’s second “Re-entry” experience, but the year before I had been with him the whole time. He isn’t particularly strong in either French or the local language and couldn’t find his classmates in the corral of kids and couldn’t remember what he was supposed to say when they called his name. So he had spent those several minutes getting worked up and scared.

Our youngest in the crowd

I gave him a hug and reassured him that even when I’m not with him, that God is always there and he didn’t need to be scared. I asked the crowd to make a way and this time I pushed forward with our son. Soon a boy called out his name with a smile and as soon as he saw our son’s tears, he put his arms around his neck and held him for awhile. Our son looked back at me and gave me a tentative smile.

Sometimes we think about our kids’ school experience and we grieve that they aren’t having the positive school experiences we had at home in the USA. School here can be pretty tedious. The teaching style isn’t very dynamic or engaging. They don’t do many fun activities. No science experiments, no crafts, no exciting visuals, no field trips. Plus, our kids are the only foreign kids in the school, so they are always different, always scrutinized.

Still we remind ourselves that just because it isn’t what they would have had in the US, it isn’t all bad either. There is still the friendly teacher who kneels down, smiles and introduces herself to our 7 year old. There are the friends who share their snacks. There are the games at recess. There is the learning how to interact and build friendships across cultures. Our kids aren’t having our experiences, but they are learning a lot.

Our oldest in her new classroom

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Megan did another open ocean swim.  We are thankful for this new opportunity for her to enjoy a sport she loves.  We are also thankful that her back has remained healthy enough for her to do these sorts of things.  The kids’ first days of school went well and they all seem to have positive feelings about their teachers. We’re also thankful that homeschool continues to go so smoothly.  Most days the kids enjoy their assignments and get their work done in good time. Some recent celebrations have allowed us to continue to deepen connections with friends and neighbors.  We’re thankful for the ways we are continually allowed into community here.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Ma Imani still isn’t well. We’ve heard that there was a scary episode where she stopped breathing and her family worried that she had died. Still not sure exactly what is wrong as she has gotten differing diagnoses. Pray for her healing, that she would be able to breathe again fully and normally and that it would be understood what is happening with her lungs. Ma Imani is a wonderful connector of people and so we pray that even through her illness that she could be drawing the people together on the big island. Our former teammates who now serve “next door” on the French Island are in France so that our friend (the Brazilian doctor) can take exams that would allow him to be a fully-recognized doctor on the French Island (so far he has been working as an intern). Pray for him as he takes these exams, especially as they are changing the hospital’s visa practices and he might not be able to get a visa as an intern in the future. Pray that this added pressure would not cause extra stress but that his exams will go well. Pray for our kids as they start their school years, that God would protect them and bless them with good friends and teachers.

Skits & Sketches

Ready to watch some sketches!

“Are you knowing that the man you came here with is married?” The waiter asks the pretty young woman when her date goes to the bathroom.  She makes a face of great surprise and shock.  Meanwhile, her date is in the bathroom talking to himself.

“Aye! I didn’t bring my money.  I must be going home right now!  She cannot see me leaving.”

The man sneaks out and races home only to find his wife waiting, very suspicious and very angry, “My husband, where have you been?” She asks.

“Oh, my wife.  Do not ask me these questions.  Where is my money?” He snaps.

“I spent the money.” She spits back.

“Aye! You have done a very bad thing.” He grabs his head in despair.

“Me! It’s you who did the bad thing!” She yells as his phone starts to ring.  She grabs it from him and answers it.  “Who are you, and why are you calling my husband?”

A classic restaurant scene!

Sound exciting?  Maybe a bit overly dramatic with a few grammatical mistakes thrown in? Welcome to our English Sketch Exams.  Students completing their third level of classes are required to write and perform original skits.  The results are usually an interesting mix of moral teaching, cultural insights, and soap opera.

Mostly, the students do great.  They practice hard and come up with original ideas that show off their English and leaves them feeling proud and empowered with their language learning.  But having seen many of these sketches now, it is interesting to note some of the cultural themes that appear again and again:

• The unfaithful husband
• The powerful boss/teacher taking advantage of his position with young women
• The perils of being lazy and the importance of education
• Stealing and its consequences
• The desperate search for money and the wonderful perfect life of the rich
• Being cheated because you don’t know the language
• Finding a better life comes from traveling abroad

What does it say about island culture that these themes are so often repeated?

As I watched some sketches this week I suddenly had the thought, maybe this is more soap opera than real life.  Maybe this doesn’t reflect worldview and cultural norms.  Maybe it just makes good drama.  So I leaned over to one of the teachers and asked him about it.  “This story about a man cheating on his wife and then not having the money to pay for his date.  Could that really happen here?”  The teacher smiled at me knowingly and said.  “Oh yes.  Do you know Salim Ibrahim—the one with the shop downtown? This happened to him.”  So, there you go.

The after-skit group photos

PRAYERS ANSWERED
The old friend who has been coming by consistently to watch parts of a important film has finished watching the film.  Some good conversation ensued and he is interested in watching it again more closely and really thinking about it.  We are encouraged that he seems eager to do this.  Other meetings continue to go well.  A number of classes have recently finished and we are happy to be able to connect with so many students and to see so many of them doing so well.  Megan made an open ocean swim this week for the first time.  She has been exploring this exercise option for awhile and it was awesome to see it work so well.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
We just learned that our good friend Ma Imani (who now lives on the big island) was rushed to the ER with difficulty breathing. She is only in her early 30’s and it is not clear at the moment why she is having trouble breathing. Pray for healing and clarity about what the problem is.  The kids will start school this week.  Pray for good transitions and happy reunions with friends and teachers.  Pray for their year ahead to go smoothly and well.  We are still searching for future teammates for our 2020 team.  Some of the people who showed interest have chosen to go in other directions.  Pray that God would send the right people in our direction soon so that they can start the process of preparation to come to the islands.

A Good Catch?

Island husband and wife

“Is he a good person?”
“Oh, yes!” they assured me.
“Have you known him long?” I pushed, wondering if they knew him well enough to know if he was a good guy or not.
“No. But he came and told me that he wanted to marry me and we talked some and understood each other. He likes my child and she likes him.”

So she’s planning on marrying the guy who she barely knows! Just like that, even after her disastrous first marriage to a guy she barely knew, where he only stuck around long enough to impregnate her and then left her with absolutely nothing—no support, no contact, nothing. They had told me that the first guy was a “good person” too, only to rail about him later as the worst of men. It came out later that he had only married her because his mom wanted him to. So this new guy desires to marry her for his own reasons—does that make him a catch?

This is not the first time that we have been chagrined by the lack of scrutiny that some islanders use in the engagement process. For many island women there is a feeling that you need to secure a guy while you can. “Who knows how many proposals you’ll get? This could be your only chance.” Unfortunately, this thinking often leads to people “settling”, loveless marriages, and quick divorce.

Our three peas in a pod

Unfortunately again, islanders don’t usually put high expectations on marriage. Husbands and wives often don’t spend a lot of time together, so if they don’t really enjoy each other’s company that’s not a problem.  I remember warning a mother against her daughter’s fiancé and she just assured me that if he was really a bad guy, then “she’d just leave him.” The possibility that he was a terrible guy wasn’t enough to stop the wedding.  Terrible husband?  No problem.  There’s always divorce.

So our friend has found someone who wants to marry her. With a messy first marriage and a child, her options aren’t plentiful. In that sense, she’s content to have any offer. But still, we push her to want more, to know the man before she marries him, to make sure he’ll treat her and her daughter well, to see if she likes him as a person beforehand.  We push and probe and ask questions, but it’s an uphill battle.  It’s yet another area where we fight against the current while the blank stares and non-committal answers seem to say, “Why do you care so much?”

Tom at the bday party

It’s this background of unfulfilling/broken marriages that made last Thursday so refreshing… We were at an island sister’s birthday party.  Her husband got up and gave a speech. We listened as he talked about his wife and their marriage. They had been friends, went to school together, studied abroad together, and been engaged for six years before they married. There was a sense of partnership, of a building a life together, of genuine affection and respect that was so different from what we hear from most islanders about marriage.  Now their marriage has not always been easy.  We’ve seen them go through some hard times.  But the commitment, the love, the oneness is there in a way so often lacking in island marriages, we couldn’t help but rejoice with them and hope that it will be an example worth following.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
The rumors of unrest did not come to fruition! Things have been calm. Our teammate made it safely back to the US.  Our sister’s birthday party was a lot of fun and a great opportunity for her to reach out to her friends in love.  Tom was able to get back together with the guys he’s been meeting with and it went well.


PRAYERS REQUESTED
We pray for our friend mentioned above that she will find a good man to marry and be a father to her daughter (whether it is her current suitor or someone else). Tom has had a bad cough for a couple weeks, pray that it would go away and he’d get good sleep.  A neighbor we’ve known for a long time has recently shown an interest in talking about the kingdom of light and watching the associated film.  These meetings have been encouraging, even if we’re not sure where it is all leading to.  Pray it leads to great things! Megan has been making new and deeper contacts with some of our neighbors.  Pray that these friendships could continue to develop.

The Perils of Renting

Boys & friend at house under construction

As foreigners on the islands, we rent our homes.  It might be possible to buy but islanders don’t really buy and sell their homes so the only things available are far-flung empty plots of land. On the other hand, island culture is particularly suited to foreign renters.  This might seem surprising since very few foreigners move to the islands, but it works out quite nicely for us.

It all begins with a wedding.  If there is one thing that is central to island culture, it is the big wedding.  This is not a wedding in the sense that Westerners think of wedding—island weddings take a week and include multiple ceremonies, gifts paraded to the bride’s family, gifts paraded to the groom’s family, meals, massages and more!  And one of the key parts of the marriage ceremony the bride’s house. Putting on a wedding means fixing up a house.  So each year houses all over the island are built, rebuilt, painted, and refurbished all for the sake of weddings.

But the funny thing is, many islanders do not choose to live in the “wedding” house.  They may have a beautiful house built and fully furnished in their village, but their job requires them to live in town.  So the house remains empty.  These empty wedding houses are very common because of the propensity of islanders living abroad to come back to the islands to have a wedding, only to return to France, mainland Africa, China or wherever it is they may live.

Now with such a small number of foreigners living here, we often have our pick of a number of well furnished houses to choose from, many that have never been lived in.  Our first house was owned by a woman who had not been there in 20 years.  She lived in far off New Calcedonia!  Yet her house was fully furnished with everything from dishes and appliances to beds and sofas, all waiting for a renter or her eventual return.  The house we now rent is similarly owned by a woman who lives on the French island nearby.  The house came fully furnished, and even installed with solar power, yet had no one living in it—waiting for renters.

Megan at event outside our house

Now, it might sound like this is the perfect set up, but there are some drawbacks.  There are plenty of nice houses available, but sometimes they are so nice they are both out of our price range and/or a stumbling block to relationships.  If you lived in a simple home made of tin, would you feel comfortable entering a fully furnished, large 6-bedroom house? Probably not. It would seem like a palace.  We want accessible, welcoming homes and in our quest to live an appropriate and simple lifestyle, it can hard to find a less ostentatious, say 3 bedroom house.  We’re looking for nice, but not too nice.  But the other problem, and the greatest peril for a renter, is the very thing that gives us the opportunity to live in these houses in the first place—weddings.

Now only days ago we paid 4 months of rent in advance for our teammates’ home. At the same time we confirmed with the landlord that our teammates hoped to continue living in their apartment for the coming year. This was all readily agreed to, so we were surprised to receive a phone call last night asking for an immediate visit.  Within minutes the landlord with spouse and kids in tow were in our living room explaining a new problem. Sure enough, the problem was a wedding.  The previous day, the landlord’s mother had come and said her youngest daughter would be married and they wanted our teammates’ house for the ceremony.

What does this mean for our teammates?  Time to go house hunting!  Just like that, we need a new housing plan.

First lost tooth!

(Now, before you feel too bad for our teammates…we’re actually quite appreciative of this landlord giving months of warning.  We well remember when our teammates on Volcano island were kicked out of their house with less than a month to find a new place—all for the sake of a wedding.)

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our teammate left this morning, her final week went well and she finished her first term on the island strong! Elewa had a birthday party last week where her husband gave a speech giving a very countercultural  message on marriage that we found encouraging. The evaluation with the speech therapist went well and she has already equipped us with a bunch of activities to use with our boys moving forward. Our youngest lost his first tooth! We thank God for our growing kids!

PRAYERS REQUESTED
We’ve heard rumors that there might be more unrest sometime next week. We’re not sure if these rumors will amount to anything, but please pray for this nation, that there would be peaceful avenues toward change and healthy governance. Pray for our teammates as many future plans are up in the air right now, pray for direction and a clear way forward. There have been a couple of disrupted weeks where Tom hasn’t met with his normal weekly group of guys, pray that they could come together this week without any scheduling obstacles. We’ve heard some reports of conflict and potentially unhealthy meeting practices— pray for these situations and for us as we consider whether to get directly involved.

Paying Dues

Tom at an event this week

What do you do if you want to build a friendship with someone from a completely different background? Someone with different beliefs, values, and opinions? What if they find your beliefs, values and opinions offensive or wrong?  Or vice versa?

Coming to the islands that is the situation we face. We disagree with island beliefs and culture in many ways and they disagree with ours. Every once and awhile you’ll find an islander that welcomes our thoughts and beliefs without knowing us, but that is rare. Islanders may always welcome our wealth and professional expertise, but they don’t want any differences of beliefs or values.

The islands are almost completely homogeneous in culture and beliefs. They aren’t used to engaging with people that are different from them. And like most peoples and cultures in the world, the assumption is that their way is the best way—their way is the right way of thinking and seeing the world. As such, they can be quick to dismiss foreign ways and ideas as part of a godless package of being a foreigner.

Kids making friends with neighbors

Not that islanders aren’t willing to change and learn in some ways. They embrace new technology easily enough. But islanders have hot-button topics—issues that if you bring up an opposing view you will automatically get a vehement response. Certain debates can kill a friendship before it has even started.  And to make it more problematic, these are not just superficial ideas, these are ideas that islanders feel are very important and basic.  So what do we do? How do we create friendships when so many issues divide us? It’s a simple strategy.  We have to “pay our dues”.

How do we pay our dues?  First, we seek out friendships.  Our human nature is to seek out like-minded people.  But here we actively seek people with differing views.  It seems simple, but being open to friendships with people who are different is not easy.  It’s a big step step in paying our dues.  The second part of the strategy is to build trust and respect. This means holding our tongues sometimes.  It means being patient.  It means letting actions speak louder than words.  There are many things we’d love to share with our island friends but we know they will never be ready to hear our differences if they don’t respect us. We never lie.  If someone asks us directly for our thoughts and ideas, we share them. But we try to focus on the ideas that will build trust and respect. . We want to know and love people. We want them to know and love us.  This takes time—time together, sharing, eating, working and talking.  Only when we have paid our dues will they be able to receive a different idea with listening ears.

So how have we paid our dues? We’ve made friends. We have invested a lot of time and effort into being appreciated and respected in the island community. We’ve learned language. We’ve modified how we dress, eat and live.  We’ve been part of our local community.  We talk about the things we can agree on, for example, the importance of family, the problems of a corrupt government, the need for honesty and trust.  And we’ve waited patiently to speak into areas where we disagree, like marriage, faith, spirits, money, etc.  For years we’ve been doing this.  Paying our dues.  But paying dues has a purpose. It means membership.  And membership means the freedom to speak.

Megan learning about a traditional dance

So this is why Tom could visit his newly married friend and say exactly what he thinks of the broken system of marriages here, where husbands don’t talk about the idea of loving their wives and sacrificing their own desires for that of their spouse.  Or why Megan could say to our neighbor emphatically that we do NOT believe the same thing and that at the core our neighbor has it wrong.  This is why, when we tell someone the story of the 2 Kingdoms and talk about the one way to be free of the darkness in their hearts, they will at least hear us out.  We’ve paid our dues.  We have a right to speak.

It is not our job to change people’s minds.  It is not our duty to convince them of new ideas.  But we have a responsibility to share with them the truth we know.  To do that well, we must have a relationship, we must first pay our dues.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our island brother on Volcano Island who had been rejected by his family a few months ago has seen some softening lately. We thank God and pray for healing in those relationships. Megan’s tummy and our daughter’s allergies both seem to be doing better. There is an app for people on Volcano Island to read the word in their own language. Hundreds of islanders have downloaded it! 



PRAYERS REQUESTED
It is our teammate’s final week on the island before leaving for several months. Pray that she would be able to close up well. We are looking at the future of our team in 2020 (when we hope to welcome new workers). There have been various potential people who could join us— pray with us that the right people would commit to coming and joining in the work. Our boys are going to evaluated by a speech therapist (via video chat) tomorrow morning. Pray that we find a good plan for future improvement of their speech.